Air Force Builds Supercomputer Out of PlayStation 3’s

Someone in the Air Force got the bright idea of getting a bunch of PS3s together – 1,700 to be exact – and creating one of the world’s largest computers. The Condor Cluster is the 33rd largest computer in the world and is used to run the classified satellite images and information. If you that Xbox Live user AirForceDelta is making your game lag, you can blame our government’s top secrets for that. (Just kidding.) (More on Time.com:Air Force to Soldiers: Be Careful With Your Social Media Updates)

The computer can analyze billions of pixels per minute, according to The Plain Dealer. High-performance computing director at the Air Force Research Lab’s operation in Rome, New York said they made a deal with Sony and a distributor simply because it was cheaper to use PS3s than to build a computer. (Suuuuure.) It costs about $400 a console – while a comparable computer would cost upwards of $10,000 to create a similar module. Before you go out and call all your friends to get a couple PS3s and meet you in your parent’s basement, the special technology that allows the Air Force to link the devices is no longer available on the slim model that came out this year – and some special technology that they’re not keen to share with you. The Blu-Ray function is disabled on the military computers, but the gaming system is still intact. World’s most awesome-ly massive Call of Duty multiplayer game anyone?